[Chris Roach]

Well, started my spring off with a BANG! Came home from work yesterday to find a large pipe propped against the garage wall had fallen and hit the Q-Panel of my 69 Judge, leaving a nice dent and scratch. Since there are no body lines to blend to, will blending the clear be noticeable? Any suggestion instead of repainting the entire car? The paint is carousel red PPG Base/Clear about 10 years old.

thanks for any tips.

[Cammer-6]

Ouch!
thats the problem with 68 and newer 1/4s
have a paintless dent guy work it out ,even if the paint is broken,they can fix the dent so it needs no bondo.

[DBONES152]

Chris,

I’m not sure whether you just want an answer to the question of will the blend be noticeable, or you need advice on how to do the blend.

The answer to your question is simple – depends how hard you look. I have fixed about a dozen little nicks and dents on my car over the years, and as long as the blend is on the side of the car, it is only noticeable with a very high intensity light. Otherwise in normal sunlight you cannot see them. Blending on the top of the car (hood, trunk lid, etc.) is a different story. When the sun hits the repair just right, you see a “halo” around the repair where the blend ended.

If you need any instructions on how to do the repair, I can try to explain what I do. There is also a very helpful forum on bodywork you may want to browse.

http://autobodystore.com/forum/index.php

Dan

[Chris Roach]

Dan,
Yes, I was wondering if the clear blend will be noticeable. Since its a non-metallic color, I feel confident enough that the color will match OK, I'm just a bit unsure of how the clear will blend. I'll probably repaint the entire quarter and blend it where the roof and quarter meet, since that's the smallest area that will need to be blended. I'll post a picture of the damage as soon as I can muster up enough courage to look at it again .

[400 4spd.]

Chris, you're right, that is the best place to blend your clear. Of couse you want to keep the base color area to a minimum, but clear the entire panel. Is the dent towards the rear of the quarter or the front half?

[eric65]

Chris
It is possible to blend clear coat but I have never had any luck with doing it. That maybe due to my skill level and there maybe some out there that can.
I had a nick on a hood and tried and tried to blend the clear after I sprayed the nick with base coat. I could never get the clear to blend and wound up re-clearing the whole hood. I would always get an edge and noticeable where the clear stopped and when I tried to wet sand and buff the clear would just peel..

There are a few tricks out there that you can try
One is to spray the clear coat with Reducer in it. The reducer burns the clear and is suppose then not to leave an edge. Ive tried that but maybe I didnt have the right mix. As it would not burn the edge for me and left a spray line as well///

The second is a burn spray U-Pol makes called U-Pol System 20 fade out spray. This can be used on fresh clear to burn the edge into the old clear

Attached a link to a web site that sells it to show what it looks like, A local paint jobber should sell it.. Its an aresol
http://www.levineautoparts.com/upsys20fadou.html

I tried this as well I started having some luck with it but I would keep at it and burn the clear too much resulting in lifting. Takes maybe more paitence than I have.

You can try these methods What I wound up doing was spraying color on the patch then re-clearing the hood.. Which is easier than the quarter as the hood dosent continue on the whole car like the quarter does.. I can see your point you would practially have to re-clear the whole car.

Try these blending techniques they may work for you

[paint guy]

just as an aside,I would spray and clear a test panel BEFORE I put any paint on the car,as a color check.If by chance,you have some 10 yr old color left over,I would still give it a hard look at color and for "seeding"(little specks that are flocculated pigment)before you decide to use it.If you have color left over and are debating whether or not to use it,my advice would be NOT to,even if it appears to be good,unless there is no other way to perfectly match the color.Good luck.

[Rocco Testa]

My late father showed me a trick for blending clears and colors. Mix some of your paint color into the clear and then blend it into your panel. It makes it something like a candy color. Finish it off in pure clear paint, thined out with a fast drying thinner. It works great, then sand and buff out.

[fried boloney]

When you blend the clear,do it in steps.i.e.,after your last coat of clear,you over reduce the clear with the same reducer you used in the clear and melt the blend edge in,then come back with just reducer and melt it in again(very light coats,you don't want a "thinner run"). Then when it dries and you wet sand it to buff it out,always make sure the buffer pad is turning away from the blend edge

[tripower]

We had our red Grand Prix in the body shop a few years ago from a shopping cart hit on the q-panel and they did this exact thing. Blended in clear a little at a time and kept moving outward. You could not detect the repair at all. Of course it was on the side of the car.

[beemergary]

I ve never had anyluck blending. Tried all of the above. Everything will look great till I try to wheel the repair and the halo will appear. I can see how a repair shop can do this because there not going to wheel out the area to give it a factory paint job.

[Velox65]

Keep the color down to a minimum, clear atleast 6 inches away from the color coat. Let it dry and you will see the "line" or haze at the edge of the clear. Lightly wet sand this with 1500 or 2000 grit, not enough till it disappears just to knock the top off, then buff it slowly with 3000grit compound (set the buffer speed to about 1k or 1.5k rpm) and it will be good as new, we did this on several 150k dollar Freightliner Sport Chassis trucks (even our sema show truck this year) just be sure not to sand to much or buff to fast or you will lose the clear you just shot and will have to start over.